What Breaks Me Saves Me
by sweet-and-simple
Summary: Lambo guest speaks as a victim of gang rape.  His lover stands at the back of the room, listening.  AU fic RL RebornXLambo


"_My name is Lambo Bovino and I… I… I would like to be one of your guest speakers…" _

Those were the words that had lead him to this podium, looking out over a few dozen people who tried to look everywhere but at each other or themselves.

A majority of them were woman in their young adulthood with the exception of a fair number younger and older. The rest were men, all of them with similar expression of rage if not shame.

There was one man that stood out to him, though, one that terrified him to see.

'_How did he know I was going to be here?' _He silently wondered to himself, his clammy, cold hands shaking as he gripped the stand before him for balance. _'He can't be here! I can't let him hear… Goodness, please leave, please read the message I'm trying to send you without words and leave.'_

Reborn knew the basic idea of what had happened to him, but Lambo was about to go into detail – detail he had never wanted his lover of nearly a year to learn.

He had been ready to admit the filthy facts to these perfect strangers because they weren't strong enough to speak up for themselves; they had been strong enough to arrive, strong enough to stay, but none of them looked accepting of their fate or free of the tortures their memories forced them to suffer time and time again.

"H-hello." He flinched at his own shrill voice. He was trying to speak to the gathered group but his own words failed him.

He forced himself to breathe.

He glanced at his lover in the back of the room, his _Steve Harvey_ label black suit like a calling card among blank pieces of paper.

He derived both strength and weakness from his presence.

"Hello." He tried again.

He fiddled with the sleeves of his bulky white sweater; it wasn't actually that cold – as a matter of fact, he was sweating – but he despised showing skin in public. He also wore black jeans that were long enough to rest on his leather brown sneakers.

He tilted his head down, horrified to meet anyone's gaze; his bangs, at jaw length, hid his emerald eyes. The longest strands of his hair reached the nape of his neck.

"My name is Lambo Bovino and I am 18 years old..." He made himself speak loud enough to be heard despite the urge to whisper. "When I was 15, I was a victim of… of gang rape."

Amazing. With that small admittance, he had the attention of every person in the room and some of his fear fled him.

He straightened his shoulders out, careful to not look at his lover.

"I was forced against my will to have sex with three men, one of them I had thought was my friend and all three of them I had known since I was five." He remembered their faces.

Envious and strange-acting Levi who had had piercings like a cat had fur. He had towered over Lambo, forcing him to his knees and the teen had felt as if he was trying to look up a tree when the man had used his bruising grip on his jaw to tilt his head back and force his mouth on him.

He shivered and had to swallow repetitively at the memory; Levi had always hated him though – had despised him ever since Lambo had been five years old.

Kikyo had been a beautiful man with long, wavy teal hair and a demeaning gaze. Lambo had never liked him to begin with and his foster brother had never trusted him, but the gang Kikyo had run with had always stayed near to their family just to stir up trouble.

He felt himself get sick in the pit of his stomach as he reminisced of the man's body over his.

But what those two had done hadn't hurt nearly as bad as what his dear friend, Rauji had done to him.

Rauji had been his friend since he had been five. Rauji had been his bulbous giant of an ally with fish lips, dull red eyes, and thinning hair; despite his unattractive appearance, Lambo had loved him… _as a friend_. As someone he had trusted at his back. And then Rauji had forced him onto his belly, ripped his body in half and then had broken his soul as Levi and Kikyo had forced him to pleasure them simultaneously.

"Th-they…" He forced himself to breathe. "They performed double and triple penetration on me… I - …" He gulped. "I was forced t-to… do fellatio on all three… They raped me… repeatedly over three hours…" Tears streaked down his cheeks but he managed to hold back the sobs.

There were men in the crowd looking at him; some looked disgusted but others looked as if they needed to hear this.

It was tough being male and being raped by another male. Not to say it went any easier for women – not to say that at _all_ – but society in general was more accepting of female victims. For a man to be raped… it was emasculating and disgraceful, as terrible as that sounded. This day and age was still caught in the web of sexism and stereotypes. There were those who willingly accepted that it could happen to _anyone_, but what boy would have the courage to tell his guy friends that they had been forced to have sex?

"They told me that I had deserved it because I liked to wear tight clothes with not all the buttons done up."

This caught a majority of female attention, a number of them dressed conservatively just like Lambo.

They knew what that was like. It was in their teary eyes that they had been blamed for their own rape, that something they had said or done had caused others to take advantage of them.

"They said I had always been asking for it just because I enjoyed parties and I was a people person. Goodness, they made it sound as if I had deserved what they had done to me by being who I was …"

He looked to the back of the crowd, finally. Reborn was looking directly at him, his obsidian black eyes indiscernible.

"B-but… But… However… I know they were wrong… well, now I know that. At first… I thought they were right. I stopped trusting my family and closest friends after what they had done to me because I was terrified it would happen again. I changed out my clothes into things that covered me more and I stopped talking… to everyone. I felt like a whore and I was sure people were staring at me, waiting f-for me to let my guard down…" He bit his bottom lip – too late, the sob escaped.

He sucked in a deep breath. "I tried to commit suicide by swallowing all the pills in the medicine cabinet but m-my brother, Yamamoto, found me and t-took me to the hospital." He looked down at his clenched fists. "I-I was forced to take counseling… At first, I thought it wouldn't work. But my shrink, Luche, –" Said woman was also present but Lambo wasn't frightened by her being there. She was the one who had suggested he do this.

Luche was a small woman with sky blue eyes, cerulean blue hair, and an encompassing motherly aura. She had a daughter and a granddaughter and yet didn't look a day over 25.

"– was wonderful… I told her everything and she helped me talk to my family again." He wanted them to get counseling too or else he wouldn't have brought her up.

Looking into their eyes, there were so many who weren't getting help. He didn't want them to take the same road he had.

"With her and my family's support, I'm healing…" He opened and shut his mouth.

Should he do it?

"… A-and… also… m-my… my boyfriend has been helping me get over my insecurities…" Just in case, he didn't say his name.

Luche knew who he was and he knew who he was and that was all that was important.

"We have been together for about nine months…" They had met after Lambo had begun counseling.

Lambo worked at a flower shop; before and after he had gotten help, his only comfort had been taken from caring for the plants – the roses to be specific.

When Lambo had first met Reborn, the man had been dragged into his store by a woman with dark pink hair, olive eyes, and distractingly full lips as well as a killer figure.

He had vaguely recognized the woman as Bianchi, Gokudera's older sister.

After that, for whatever reason, he and Reborn met more frequently both in and out of the store till Lambo's fear had been rekindled, thinking that the man was stalking him.

It was ironic that the man who had terrified him at first had healed him later. Reborn had displayed patience and gentleness that didn't seem to fit his persona in the least; it had taken him a very long time to usher Lambo into lovemaking, nearly as long as their relationship thus far.

Lambo had always been certain Reborn was going to leave him at any moment.

He was the damaged object, the violated creature, the boy who couldn't wear anything less than baggy pants and sweltering sweaters.

He still couldn't have sex on hands and knees or on his belly – every time they tried, he had a breakdown. The positions were far too vulnerable, far too familiar.

Lambo had prepared himself early in their relationship for Reborn's goodbye.

Except it never came.

If anything, Reborn had drawn closer to him over time.

"_You don't get it, do you? If the only way you could have sex was if we were on the ceiling, I would flip this house upside down without complaint. You have insecurities and I have time; you assuage my needs, fill my wants, and still manage to mock me every chance you get – if I wanted something else, I would have chosen someone else."_

"His goal is to get me to walk around the house in my pajamas without dragging the comforter with me." That was his one goal among many goals.

"_We're going to get you to go swimming in trunks."_

"_You're going to this party with me."_

"_I want to know the heat of your mouth on me, but we're going to get your back to me first."_

"_You're going to let me hold you."_

Reborn had never asked. He had always _known_, but he had never asked; he had made everything he had said a demand but he had only demanded when there was only a small chance of Lambo not being able to handle it.

"_I know you're not ready for this; that's why we're doing it. You're going to step out your comfort zone."_

"I-I…" He tried to clear his thoughts… He couldn't think of anything else to say. "… W-without them… without them _all_, I wouldn't be here… Without my family, I wouldn't have gotten help… Without my counselor, I wouldn't be standing here talking to you all… and… without my boyfriend, –" There was humor to be had with calling Reborn his _boy_friend but the amusement was just out of his grasp. "– I would probably still be hiding every chance I got."

He sucked in a deep breath. "I-I love them all… What those men did to me… The nightmares it still gives me and the shame I still carry… none of it is stronger than what I feel for those who have helped me to stand back up."

The groups must have felt that that was the end of his speech because they began clapping.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and Luche was there, smiling proudly at him. "Good job, Lambo. You might not be able to tell right now, but you helped a lot of people by doing this."

He nodded, his throat closed off now that he was done.

Despite the raging emotions he felt – shame, fear, embarrassment, horror, hope, disgust – a smile curled his lips.

He could see his lover's proud smirk from where he stood. And he knew that even if Luche wasn't right, there was at least one person who recognized how much progress he had truly made to have stepped out of his shell so prominently.

'_Reborn, I might not tell you this enough… but I think you're my guardian angel.' _He admitted to himself, eyes soft on the man.

'_Thank you for never leaving me.'_

_

* * *

_Author's Note: … You wanna know what? I had this plot stuck in my head today and was originally going to make it a multi-chapter story; when I tried to do that, I failed – so I turned it into a one-shot that included Lambo's family (his foster brother is Tsuna, by the way). That failed, so I changed it _again_… and then once more.

The story prevailed in the end, even if with a few glitches.


End file.
